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John Branch - Boy on Ice

Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - 7:00pm

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's heartbreaking account of the life and shocking death of the toughest man in hockey.

Derek Boogaard lived an almost mythic sports story: from pond-hockey on the prairies of Saskatchewan to a first NHL contract in Minnesota to the storied New York Rangers as the most feared enforcer in the league. A gentle young man, he was a brutal fighter on ice skates, capable of delivering career-ending punches and intimidating entire teams. But his death at age twenty-eight from an overdose of painkillers in the wake of a series of concussions helped shatter the silence about violence in professional sports. Boy on Ice ($26.95) is New York Times reporter John Branch's chronicle of Boogaard's tragic life and death. A human story in the tradition of Friday Night Lights and The Blind Side, it's a book that raises deep and disturbing questions about the systemic brutality of contact sports-from peewees to professionals-and damage that reaches far beyond the game.

John Branch is a reporter for the New York Times. His "Snow Fall" won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. He lives near San Francisco.

The tragic death of hockey star Derek Boogaard at twenty-eight was front-page news across the country in 2011 and helped shatter the silence about violence and concussions in professional sports. Now, in a gripping work of narrative nonfiction, acclaimed reporter John Branch tells the shocking story of Boogaard's life and heartbreaking death.